


Hollow Requiem

by alpha_hydra



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman and Robin (Comics), Red Hood and the Outlaws
Genre: Coma, Damian is a main character via his absence, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Spoilers, both for Batman inc #8 and Red Hood and the Outlaws #17-18, but you don't have to, hence, it would be nice if you read Death of the Family too, just know that Jason's hood got tampered with and there was like acid or something in there
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-29
Updated: 2013-03-29
Packaged: 2017-12-06 19:49:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/739449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alpha_hydra/pseuds/alpha_hydra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jason Todd wakes up and his youngest brother is dead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hollow Requiem

**Author's Note:**

> Woops I wrote grief!fic. This deals with grief and figuring out how do deal with death (specifically the death of a child). 
> 
> Honestly I felt kind of cheated when Jason didn't have a proper requiem issue for Damian, even though #18 was a very top quality issue in its own right, so I decided to write my own.
> 
> So if you don't know !!!SPOILERS!!! in Red Hood and the outlaws 17 Jason gets like face-acided by his hood and ends up in like a coma or something, and it's all very dramatic and character-building when he runs into phantom!ducra and she gives him Important Life Lessons. I actually highly recommend buying 17 and 18 because even though they're written by Lobdell, they are surprisingly good reads, and you don't have to know a lot of what happened in Death of The Family to understand (but it might help to like, wiki the storyline?) In my head canon Jason wakes up almost immediately at the end of Batman and Robin #18 (JESUS GO READ THAT ONE IT IS IMPOSSIBLY PAINFUL) and yes. Unbeta'd because i have a terrible philosophy that pieces under 2k don't need betas /hides

Jason Todd wakes up ten days after his own mask tried to burn his face off. It's the middle of the night, and Bruce is sitting by his bedside, his eyes twinkling from the moonlight is spilling in through the open window. 

He tries to sit up, apologize for worrying Bruce again, and instead he gets one of Bruce's all-encompassing, rarely-seen bear-hugs for his trouble. Jason holds on tight, swallows past the mysterious lump in his throat and squeezes his eyes shut.

He hears Batman's voice, an echo of his dream, _one thing I never apologize for is taking a chance on you,_ and he wants to say _thank you_ , but instead he says nothing at all. 

Next morning, he finds out Damian Wayne died while he was out. Jason figures that he should have guessed something bad had happened from the night before; Bruce initiating any sort of tactile affection happens only when he's near the end of his rope. 

Alfred is subdued as he works his way around the kitchen. Jason sits on the counter top by the sink, watching Alfred's perfect posture; every now and then he'll place his hand on the fridge, or run his fingers over a cabinet door handle, something infinitely tired in the set of his mouth.

“Last night was the first night Master Bruce spent at home since—since the incident,” Alfred says, perfectly ordinary if you ignore the way the corners of his eyes are turning red. 

“Lucky,” Jason says. He lets the silence settle around them, then, in a bout of truthfulness adds, “I don't know what I might have done, if I'd woken up to an empty room after over a week.”

“Indeed.” Alfred smiles, a little tight around the edges, but genuine just the same. “I'm glad you're back with us, Master Jason.” 

He sets a mug down on the counter that smells like cinnamon, nutmeg, and honey. Jason picks it up, considers the spoon Alfred's holding out to him, and takes a sip like he would a cup of coffee. It's been _years_ since Jason last lived here, and Alfred still remembers how he likes his oatmeal. He doesn't know what to do with that information.

“Thanks, Alfred.”

There, the tiredness melts away almost completely, and Jason can almost pretend like things aren't awful. Soon, Alfred disappears into the bowels of Wayne Manor, and Jason is left alone in the kitchen of his childhood home, sipping on his cup of oatmeal as he listens for any other signs of life in the house. 

Eventually, he starts to get restless. He re-bandages his face as quickly as he can, ignoring the ugly red burns still almost uniformly covering his face; if he's lucky, they won't scar too badly. Barbara, Dick, and Tim are long gone, and he suspects Roy and Kory went back to their makeshift hideout in the middle of the ocean too. That leaves him very much alone. For the first time in a long while, he's not sure if that's what he wants right now. 

The Great Dane is lying on a threadbare blanket just by the entrance way, like he's waiting for someone. He probably is. He'll probably be waiting for a long time. The dog watches Jason climb down the stairs and grab his leather jacket.

“Hey boy,” Jason says. His tail thwaps once against the floor before he sets his head back on his front paws and closes his eyes. Jason crouches down next to him and pats him on the head. “Yeah, I know. I didn't even like him, and I still miss him.”

Jason sits with that dog (Titus, the name on the collar says Titus, and since when has Bruce had a pet dog anyway?) until the silence starts to worm its way under his skin again. The manor, after all, isn't his home anymore, hasn't been for a long time. He's not sure if it feels more like trespassing or crashing with your parents after a bad breakup. Either way, he should leave soon. He's contemplating whether or not he should stick around long enough to say goodbye to Bruce again when his phone buzzes.

_**Roy**  
hey man I heard you were back in the land of the living!_

_**Roy**  
Shit unfortunate wording considering sorry_

_**Jason**  
It's fine. And yes I woke up this morning_

_**Roy**  
That's great man! We were really worried. Do you want me n Kory to come pick you up?_

_**Jason** Nah I'll find my way_

_**Roy**  
Well that's cryptic_

_**Roy**  
Are you sure you're okay?_

Jason's fingers hover over the screen at Roy's question. He wants to say _I never said I was okay,_ and _I'm grieving over a kid because I thought I'd have more time to get to actually liking him,_ and even contemplates saying _The only people in my family who cared if I was okay or not was Bruce and Alfred_. He turns his phone off instead.

“Hey, Titus, you want to go for a walk?”

*

The grave is more of a monument than a tombstone, and Jason might even be jealous if it wasn't a ten-year-old's goddamn grave. There's evidence that a few people have been here already; a rose looking on the crispy side of dry lies neatly against the marble (Barbara probably, or Dick, they're the two who understand sentiment). Beside it is an unopened video game, an in-joke that Jason doesn't get. Jason stands with his hands in his pockets and studies the crisp green grass around the grave. 

Five days is more than enough time for a determined psychopath to dig into a grave (or a scared kid to dig his way out), but not enough time to do a good job on reworking the landscaping. The grass around Damian's grave is trimmed short and perfect. Uniform.

“At least no one's been messing with your bones, kid,” Jason says to the grave. 

By his side, Titus lets out a deep, baying bark. And another, and another. They echo around the yard, rattle Jason's brains a little. 

“Jesus, Titus,” he says, scratches the dog behind the ears when the barks taper off into a whine. He thinks that it took about a year for death to decide it wasn't quite so permanent for him. One more quick inspection around the grave and he sighs, a little. “All right, let's go.”

He goes back the next day.

And the day after that. 

By day number four he's set up a basic motion trigger device, set to alert if anyone tries to get in or out of that grave. He smirks a little lopsided, sitting cross-legged by Damian's grave as he connects the system unobtrusively to the batcave network. 

“In a perfect world, I'd exhume you just to make sure you're not actually a highly sophisticated wax replacement body,” Jason tells the grave, “but somehow, I don't think the rest of the family would like that idea much. Imagine Bruce's face though? Pretty priceless.”

He sets his laptop aside and stretches out in the grass by the grave, arms pillowing his head as he watches the sky. He tries very hard not to remember dirt underneath his fingernails, in his mouth and up his nose, tries to ignore years worth of nightmares that he thinks he might never get over. 

“Ducra said I can't live in the past and the present all at once,” he says to the empty sky. “She said that I have to learn to let things go, but I don't think I can do that alone.” After a minute--“Ugh, all right, _fine_ \--” he sits back up, drags over his computer and synchs three more devices to Damian's grave-moniter: his phone, Roy's phone, and the computer banks back on their ship. 

“Here's a plot twist for you kid, I don't actually dislike you,” Jason says, pointing an accusing finger at the grave. “So the second you pull your scrawny ass out of that grave, you call me, okay? I'll be listening.”

Finally, he stands, wiping bits of grass off his jeans absently. Things feel a little bit better now, a little less out of place. Like he can finally get back to his idiot friends to make sure they haven't accidentally wiped out an entire city in his absence. 

He turns his back on the grave, grabbing his laptop as he goes, and leaves, resisting the urge to look back at the manor one last time. 

“I'll see you around, Damian,” he says, and someone have mercy on his persistently hopeful soul, but he believes it.

**Author's Note:**

> PS the video game left at Damian's grave is actually from Nightwing, because Dick is actually a big softie when he isn't punching people's faces in and in #18 there's a truly tragically awful moment when he gets that game in the mail after promising Damian they'd play it together :c
> 
> Batman and co are property of Bob Kane, DC and all its respective writers, producers, artists and just generally people who are Not Me.


End file.
